The Wonder Tales

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

In which an Old Woman gets her wish.

Dorothea hated pears.

She had not always hated them. To begin with, she had accepted the gift of fruit with alacrity, and devoured it with full enjoyment. So crisp! So fresh! So juicy! She could happily eat a hundred of them.

The problem was, she had promptly been given a hundred of them. And by the time she had eaten her way through half of their number, she was heartily sick of the flavour. They were small, it was true: only the size of the bluegages she had eaten with such relish weeks before. Nonetheless, she could not face another, and she said so without compunction.

And then they resorted to trickery. They were Helewise and her husband, the rather dashing Ambrose; Mallinerla, the pallid but exuberant faerie woman, who called herself a star; and Pippin Greensleeves, the mulberry-clad man who said he was the King of Faerie. And another woman called Clarimond, who appeared once in a while with a fresh supply of the dreadful pears, earning her Dorothea’s instant and eternal enmity.

Maud Redthorn came to Sevenleaf one bright morning, bringing with her a stack of neat tarts and pies. Every one of them was filled to brimming with pear, Dorothea discovered to her dismay. But since they were baked with honey and spices and nuts she found them palatable enough, and was able to dispatch most of the ones pressed upon her.

Next it was Dunstan Goldwyne, from the bakery upon Harebell Street. She had always admired his establishment, and gladly accepted the tray of delicate cakes he brought her. She was a trifle dismayed when the over-familiar flavour greeted her upon taking her first bite, but since it was enlivened with marzipan and syrup she was not too much disposed to complain.

But then Ferdinand Crowther presented her with a new brew, pear cider, and Nathaniel Roseberry appeared with a six fine bottles of pear wine, and Dorothea began to feel that she had had more than enough.

‘Why,’ she said with asperity, ‘is it become impossible to eat anything that does not contain a pear?’

‘You must eat as many of them as possible, mother,’ said Mallinerla. ‘They are doing you good!’

‘I am not your mother,’ said Dorothea by reflex, and would not be brought to admit that Mallinerla was right, for she did feel somewhat better as the days passed. Her weariness lessened, though that was probably the result of sleeping well in a comfortable bed. She also felt brighter of mind and less confused, which was harder to explain to her own satisfaction.

At night, when she bathed in the River Wyn, her visions were growing stronger, more all-encompassing. It became harder and harder to relinquish them and return to her aged body, and the reality of the cold, dark waters of the river. She longed to remain enfolded peacefully in her beautiful dreams, and never have to go back to being plain, old Dorothea Winthrope.

The silly white flowers kept blossoming around her feet. Helewise swept the house free of them each morning and evening and made no complaint, perhaps because they were appealing as well as a nuisance. And every night Mallinerla sang that dratted song, and Dorothea went to sleep with the melody echoing through her dreams.

One night, she woke from a dark nightmare to find the hour far advanced. The house was silent.

Dorothea felt, for a heart-pounding moment of panic, that she did not know where she was. And she did not know who she was. The blankets felt heavy enough to suffocate her, and she threw them off. She rose from her bed, stumbled down the stairs, and went barefoot out into the night.

It was mild enough outdoors and she did not notice the seeping damp underfoot, for she drifted half in a dream through the streets of Southtown and ended her wanderings at the bridge. Passing easily through the obscuring mist, she stood in the centre of the Wynspan and stared at the dark waters below.

They beckoned, and Dorothea jumped.

She did not even try to swim, but sank gratefully into the welcoming embrace of the water. She sank and sank until she lay dreaming upon the bottom of the river, and her mind spiralled far, far away.

Ah, youth! All about her was brightness, for she was queen of the skies. Her sister was at rest, but she was not alone, for her children spangled the heavens around her. Gowned in silver-limned clouds and bejewelled with dew, she was beauty incarnate, strong and unbowed, and serene as a placid lake. She lounged upon her crescent throne, rocking gently back and forth, surveying the world spread below with the pardonable smugness of one who reigns over all she sees.

Seven rivers laced the landscape beneath, each one gleaming bright silver under her glimmering light, and beckoning her with the promise of cool, soothing water against her naked skin. One of the seven shone with a special radiance tonight, or so it seemed to her, and she watched it and dreamed until her sister began to stir. As the heavens brightened with Sun’s blazing golden light, Moon abandoned her throne and dived.

Down and down and down she fell, until she hit the sparkling water with a mighty splash.

Immediately, she knew that something was wrong. The water was not balmy-cool but freezing cold, and it felt oily against her shrinking skin — polluted — tainted. When she looked up, she did not see her sister rising from her bed, shaking out her hair and ascending to her heavenly throne. She saw instead only a faint echo, a dull orb hanging sluggishly upon the horizon, its wakening rays an insult to Sun’s dazzling radiance.

She was no longer in Faerie. How had she come to fall into the mortal lands? It did not matter. All that mattered was to leave the water at once and retreat, find the border, hasten unto Faerie before it was too late. Moon did not know what might happen if too late came to pass, and she did not wish to find out.

She swam for the riverbank, but the grimy waters did not bear her up as they used to; she no longer floated upon the surface, light as apple blossom, but sank heavily to the bottom.

Water entered her mouth and her eyes and she breathed it, choking. Consciousness faded.

When at last she emerged from the once-faerie river, she was no longer Moon. An old woman crept, shivering, onto the streets of Berrie North, a woman nameless and homeless and purposeless, a woman without knowledge of her past. She begged her way to clothing and food, settled in a cavern upon the edge of the Lynwood, and waited for destiny to find her once again.

On the bottom of the River Wyn, Dorothea Winthrope returned to herself to find her vision become a reality. Water entered her mouth and her eyes and she breathed it, choking. The sensation was familiar, for had she not experienced it shortly before, when Malachi Amberdrake had hastened to pull her out? She had thanked him, shivering and aggrieved, and refrained from telling him that it had happened many a time before; that she had always been perfectly well, and had not needed his aid.

This time, she died.